Done with lectures, now its time to learn

24 Feb

arwa |  February 24th,2012 | Uncategorized |  No Comments »

Soooooo yesterday was the LAST DAY of lectures for classes for us! We have lectures later, but not for classes specifically. It made me think back to my first day. I was so nervous, mainly because I had no idea what to expect, Sohail had just left to go back home after getting me all settled in, and Hurricane Earl had just left St. Maarten after showing off its wrath. So, quite a shakey welcome to med school! Now moving on to a ton of tests in the next few weeks. I know my excitement isn’t quite coming through in my words, but really, it’s there…

P.S.
I typed up a post while I was waiting at the airport to come to the island in January and it’s ready to go minus the pictures. I will get that up soon!

Queue the violin

12 Jan

sohail |  January 12th,2012 | blog, rambles, School |  No Comments »

I recently decided to drop my capstone class. It was a tough decision, propelled by the thought of being left out of my group and left to fend for myself. Call it a classic case of paranoia or preemptive thinking, unfortunately, I’m not the same way and if a group member was away like I was, I wouldn’t leave them high and dry.

Though, I’ve painfully learned over and over again that compassion does not fare well in the cut throat world of real life…

Time for the fun world of back story.

In November I was required to go to an orientation that would explain my capstone in great detail. What is this capstone you speak of… The capstone I speak of is basically the culmination of all my classes. It takes all the theoretical knowledge we have acquired in our time in the MBA program and has us apply it in a real life application.

So three weeks prior to the semester starting, I’m sitting in a room with 9 other people going over the requirements of this class and how it is different from any other class we’ve ever had. Having done my undergraduate degree at DeVry University, I was somewhat familiar with the capstone concept. Keller decided to take that and throw it out the window. Which, for a graduate school, should be expected.

The rough basics of what our capstone would entail was; we would start a company. The school would cover most of the legal expenses involved with this. I thought this was a fantastic idea. Then we were told since this is only an 8 week class, we would have to do work prior to class starting.

This is where I felt things were going to head downhill… I expressed to my group that I would be traveling for two of those weeks, and while I would be international, I’d still have email and even Skype.

While I was in the US, things went well, we emailed, I sent in two mediocre idea’s. The truth of the matter being, I didn’t want to try and cram out a good business plan and ground work for my business idea’s in a matter of a few weeks. So I figured I’d rather help someone else with their business and in the end, earn some capital by having theirs succeed…

As soon as I left for India all communication stopped. At first I didnt think of anything, but after a few days a dead line was missed, I felt it was time to talk to everybody, I shot out an email to one of my group mates, but never heard anything back. The thought that I had been ditched slowly crept into my head, but as it was my brothers wedding, the honest truth was, no fucks were given.

My goal was to be the most helpful brother possible and to have as much fun with family as possible. I’d like to think I succeeded.

When Arwa and I came back from India, I went through my spam folder in hopes that some how all the emails were spammed and I could explain to everybody what happened… It was not the case unfortunately. The following day we left for St. Maartin with the intent of moving her into her new place. This task was no little under taking, but we accomplished like seasoned movers.

I then decided to email my academic adviser and drop the capstone class. As much as I was looking forward to little sleep and the development of ulcers helping someone else bring a business up and running, I just didnt see it happening this block. So I dropped the class…

Now the question begs, what to do with this time?

I fully intend on teaching myself a language. It’s a matter of deciding, do I go with perl or php? Do I move to a windows platform and write windows code? Do I do some iOS coding? WHAT DO I DO???? and it is this ADD stricken situation that has left me completely perplexed…

Eventually I’ll blog about India…

Fire burning…

01 Nov

sohail |  November 1st,2011 | blog, rambles, Stories |  No Comments »

Years ago, when I was but a wee bit of the man I am now, I was more socially inclined and apt to spend time on my phone talking to friends. On one particular night, while spending time on the phone with someone I was not that interested in talking to, I bore witness to something that to this day doesn’t quite haunt me, but will stay with me for the rest of my life.

While attempting to get off the phone I look over to where my friend Pat lived, and in the parking lot I see a car, but this car was different from other cars. This car was on fire! It was so much so on fire that it was burning the tree next to it. Yet it was courteous enough to not set fire to the car next to it.

That’s a level of politeness you rarely see these days.

I scream into the phone that there is a car on fire and that it’s my civic duty to call the cops and atleast pee on it or something… So, while i fumble with my zipper, Im frantically dialing 9-1-1. Oddly enough the call connected prior to my fly dropping.

What I was going to do with my zipper down over 150 feet away from the fire I’m still not sure… In retrospect I’m wincing thinking about attempting this.

At this point I have the emergency operator on the phone and she’s trying to get my attention as I watch this car drip fire. DRIP FIRE!!! WTF???? IT. WAS. DRIPPING. FIRE!!!!! Wrap your head around that for a minute. It was fire, dripping. HOLY MOTHER OF PEARL.

Back to this woman is trying to regain my attention, eventually I realize there is a woman other than my mother yelling at me on the phone, saying “State your emergency please” and I respond with “THEREISACARONFIRE” and I am greeted with “excuse me”.

I decide unless I calmly explain this, nothing is going to come of it, I take a deep breath, smell the acrid smell of plastic and metal burning along with wood… At this point I’m starting to wonder why nobody else has noticed this. Homes have windows, windows have nosy people poking their heads out when I walk around on my phone. Here we have a car, this car is on fire, the tree next to this car is on fire. Yet not a single soul is doing a damned thing about it…

Then it clicked, this is gang related. Then I start gibbering again. I keep trying to describe this car on fire… unfortunately, “It’s a car, on fire, you cant miss it” doesnt seem to cut it… I eventually get her the address and location of the car and as Im trying to give her a description as in make and model, I hear a boom. This causes me to nearly shit myself. I yell into the phone, “I’m getting shot at… SOMEONE IS SHOOTING AT ME”.

I start crouching in the middle of the street, running in some hybrid hunch, shuffle, waddle towards the car when, BOOOM, this time I hit the ground. I start yelling into the phone, “Did you hear that one? That’s the second shot… Where are the cops”. The poor woman, she must have been dying in hysterics, because it wasnt until the third explosion that she was able to explain to me that the heat was causing the tires to expand until they exploded…

I stand up and begin to dust myself off just as the cops show up and take my statement… I never did find out how or why that car got set on fire, and the tree, other than some fire damage was fine and is probably still there to this day.

 

Allure of the Seas and a double-headed dog

23 Oct

arwa |  October 23rd,2011 | Uncategorized |  No Comments »

So last month, Allure- the worlds largest cruise ship, docked in St. Maarten, so a friend of mine and I went to go check it out before we went grocery shopping. Since I now have my Nikon with me, I had a good time playing around with it. Here are some pictures from that day:

 

 

So in other news, the other day I was walking home and I saw two dogs that were tied to each other by their tails. Like actually stuck to each other. No idea what happened there, but they were mighty confused… and I think I was just as confused when I saw them like that. At first I thought it was another dog licking the other one’s butt  and then when I walked closer I realized they were stuck and kept trying to pry apart… it was sooo sad! It seemed like an act of animal cruelty more than anything else. Why someone would do something so effed up I really have no idea. I’m not even a big fan of dogs, but that’s beyond sick. I wonder what PETA would have to say about this….

Now serving eff you!!!

11 Aug

sohail |  August 11th,2011 | blog, rants |  No Comments »

Last night I went to WaWa, for those of you not familiar with this amazing phenomenon. It is akin to a convenience store, only it’s usually filled with awesome. Think of it as a 7-11 where more than stoners and other shifty looking characters go to. Have that thought filling your head with warmness? Good, now times that shizzle by 10. You’re getting close to the awesomeness that is WaWa, usually.

Every now and then, you’ll go to a WaWa and you will receive a level of service that makes you think you did something wrong. You had no part in any wrong doing, but you, you are being punished for the crimes that you have not committed…

Last night was one of those nights for me. Let’s take a moment and travel back, back to when you ask, last week… Last weekend or the weekend prior to that I was introduced to something amazing. Roast beef, cheddar, and horseradish. It would have been glorious if that’s what I had made…  Unfortunately i got mine with Roast beef, Provolone, horseradish and toasted. It tasted wonderful, so it wasnt a wasted effort, but it was horrifically wrong from the original menu. The original called for cheddar cheese and for it to not be toasted.

Flash forward to last week. A young and naive Sohail walks into WaWa with great hopes and expectations for an amazing sandwich. I search my memory banks for the correct ingredients to create this beautiful sandwich and proceed to punch it into the system. I then wander off to pay. I come back an expectant young man, close to 30, without much of a care in the world other than quenching this hunger I have.

I eagerly rush home while telling my wife about the sandwich I got and how excited I am. Im even chatting about it with a friend online and then I take a bite… “Ohh this is good”, I exclaimed. I take another bite and I feel that kick to the cerebral cortex that only  Wasabe can bring me. I enjoyed it. I took another bite and another and another and suddenly, suddenly I was very irritated with my sandwich. Each bite should not be a kick in the brain, each bite should not be more grueling and irrtating than the bite before it…

EACH BITE SHOULD NOT SPEW FORTH A LARGE DOLLOP OF FUCKING HORSERADISH ALL OVER THE GOD DAMNED PLACE…

Lets take a break, let that last sentence marinate for just a minute. Good? Good, let’s proceed. After the first fuck you to my face, I figured, it happens, people get over zealous, and maybe I should have specified a little horseraddish, instead of just horseradish. The way you can with Mayonnaise. (YOU CANT SPECIFY THIS)

So I accepted my fate, attempted to eat as much as I could and then left the last quarter of the sandwich alone because it hurt me to eat it, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. I like my food and when I cant finish it, it’s almost as if I am leaving a wounded soldier behind while I make my escape… Could explain a lot of the weight I’ve put on.

Now that I have given you my back story, let’s fast forward to last night. There I am, once again with my innocence and naivety intact. I saunter up to the machine and I debate about what I want… My original thoughts were meatballs and chicken noodle soup.

Strange combo right? My mom ate weird shit when she was pregnant with me. Don’t judge!

Unfortunately Chicken Noodle Soup was not on the menu. Whaaaaat? ARGGHHHHH, how can this be? What do they have? UGH, no, not Clam Chowder, I barely trust restaurant made Clam Chowder… Ok, fine, I’ll get meatballs and a sandwich. WHATTTT? i have to specify a container size for the meat balls? I dont know what I want, isnt there a standard number of meatballs to dollar ratio? Cant we just go with that? A medium meatball order later, I’m ready to place my impromptu sandwich order.

I brought my game face to that machine. I was ready to place an order like a boss. I was a high school bully ready to pummel my first victim. Unfortunately, my first victim while named something like Maurice, was nicknamed killer… It was a trap!

After much deliberation, I settled on a honey roasted turkey sandwich. Nothing fancy. I simply wanted a toasted sandwich containing some meat, some provolone cheese, a few pickles, sweet peppers, a light dusting of mayo, mustard and saltpepperandoregano… Nothing fancy.

The WaWa I normally go to, if you specify toast whole sandwich, they use logic, they toast the bread, meat and cheese.

THATS ALL THEY FUCKING TOAST.

This woman… the same one who created the previous monstrosity, toasted the bread, the meat, the cheese, the mayo and the mustard… WTF?

As it was, she assaulted the bread with the meat. It was like watching a pimp smack his hoes around, shaking them down for the money they owe him… “but my kid is sick…” ‘SHUT IT BITCH, WHERE MY MONIES ATTT?’

Literally half the meat gave off the impression that it was attempting to escape from the sandwich. It was almost like a scene from a prison break, so close to freedom, then gunned down, NO FREEDOM FOR YOU!

Keep in mind at this point I have a toasted sandwich, that has already been assaulted by meat and now contains hot mayo and mustard. MMMMMMMMM. That’s so the “fuck you” I was served can drip down my face…

She then proceeded to assault only half my sandwich with the peppers and pickles… ONLY HALF MY SANDWICH CONTAINED A FULL SANDWICHES WORTH OF VEGETABLES!!!! she then looks me in the face and wraps up the sandwich and thanks me!

SHE THANKED ME.

That should have been an indicator for what I was about to suffer… I get to my car and I unwrap my sandwich to assess the damage and I am torn. Do I eat the side that looks like a border jumper or do I eat the half that looks  as if its going to explode. I opt for the half that tried to illegally cross a border somewhere. I brace myself and take my first bite…

BAM, I just got punched in the mouth. All I hear reverberating around my head is “Thank you”, in that movie slow motion kind of way… all I taste is warm mayonnaise.

SQUISH SQUISH SQUISH MOTHER DUCKER

That’s right my sandwich just violated a sacred treaty between man and sandwich, and it wasnt even the sandwiches fault. It was betrayed, it was betrayed by man itself sabotaging this union in an effort to cut out happiness and joy brought forth by a well crafted sandwich.

Do I blame the sandwich for what it has done to me? No, it wasn’t the sandwiches it fault. It placed it’s trust in humanity and once again, humanity showed nothing but it’s own selfishness and tried to screw its buddy on the way out the door.

There are 2 things that really get me about all of this; 1. She was at the end of her shift, she easily could have let the person starting their shift take the sandwich instead of volunteering to do it. I would have gladly waited. 2. I should have manned up and said something to her about how she just destroyed a centuries long treaty between man and sandwich.

Will I go back to this WaWa? Most probably yes, will I ever let her make me another sandwich? By the powers bestowed upon He-Man you can rest assured that the answer to that is a resounding NO. I think I will also suggest to them that they switch people out of the food area 30 to 45 minutes prior to their shift being done so they don’t turn into complete asshats!

 

TL;DR; GFYS and read it…

Mule’s in the restroom

26 Jul

sohail |  July 26th,2011 | blog, rambles |  No Comments »

Don’t get me wrong. Mule’s are probably half my favorite animal, since they are half Donkey half Horse, I just dont get why people have to act like jack asses…

For starters, there is an obvious code of ethics when it comes to men’s restrooms. As such, if there are 5 urinals, I would appreciate the every other one concept.

For example, if I chose urinal 1, that means you have the opportunity to choose 3 or 5, and so forth. If you are the kind of person who chooses urinal 2 or 4, then you are a jerk. You have effectively taken a 3 person pissing unit and turned it into a 2 person shit show. UNACCEPTABLE.

What is also unacceptable, standing next to me when I am attempting to relieve my bladder. There are potentially 3 other urinals to choose from. I say three because if I’m at 1 then you can use 3 through 5 as you wish… Actually, no, not as you wish, because some of you are really twisted individuals and I just dont want to deal with that nonsense.

When using the stall, DO NOT PEE ALL OVER THE PLACE. I fail to understand how you at this point in your life still can not aim with a something you’ve had all your fricken life. At this point in you’re life you are either an intern or higher; so that puts you at the youngest, 17 years of age. Unless you are a child genius and working where I work for some odd reason, then I just feel bad for you… You can piss wherever you want to, as long as it’s not on me.

On a side note, As a general rule and a life lesson, 99% of the time it’s probably ill advised to attempt to pee on a person.

Also, I’ll exclude children from this mess since parents do sometimes bring their kids to work…

It’s not fucking snow, nobody can tell that you tried to write your name on the tiles or walls or what ever the fuck it is you think you are allowed to pee on. All we can tell is when you step out of that stall and look to see a person waiting and give that oh shit face, we know we’re in for an irritating time.

I assure you, one day, if you pee on the seat and I catch you, I will wipe it up with your face. Pray you have a beard otherwise it will be a long and arduous process…

As for you shit talkers, I mean literally, you people who have to talk on the phone while taking a crap. SERIOUSLY? write a fucking text, or play a game on your phone like the rest of humanity does! I have enough issues using a public restroom without hearing about you’re weekend plans. I especially love when you are on a conference call. I do my best to flush as many times as possible for no other reason than to cause you embarrassment.

What train of thought possessed you to think you could get away with joining a call WHILE IN THE EFFING BATHROOM? And then on top of that, you’re not even going to put your mic on mute because you’re going to talk? The acoustics aren’t even that great…

Random stuffs that goes through my head during the day…

06 Jul

arwa |  July 6th,2011 | Uncategorized |  No Comments »

I cannot wait to come home and walk on carpet. For those of you who may think I’m kidding, think again. It hit me this past weekend, I think, that I haven’t walked on a real carpet in over 2 months (…and yes, 3 days later i’m still thinking about this). I could never really put my finger on why it felt so weird and unnatural when I would go home and walk on carpet, but now it all makes sense. My feet miss soft carpet. All I got here are hard tiled floors and uneven pavement. It actually makes me sad to not have carpeting. One of the first things I want to do when I go home, which is going to seem super weird to my in-laws, is lay on the living room floor and roll around in that softy goodness. No joke. Then I’ll get up and go say hi to everyone :P

So, another thing thats been bothering me- flushing the toilet. Tell me, how difficult is it to do that? Anonymous students use the toilets and then don’t flush after. Sure, for some of them you gotta learn the quirks like- you gotta hold down the flush for a couple seconds longer. Why does it have to be made any more difficult than that? When I walk into the bathroom and into a stall, the last thing I want to see is someone else’s crap in the toilet and have to flush it myself cuz I really gotta go and have no other option. I do not want to flush other peoples’ crap down the toilet. People need to learn how to do it themselves. Your shit, you flush. It’s as simple as that.

My power is going out tomorrow from 9am- 4pm so I am being forced to stay at school and that is the last thing I want to do. The library is suddenly “the” place to be so now everyone and their mother is in there and I feel so claustrophobic… it’s like their all leaning over me or something. So uncomfortable. As if that’s not annoying enough, now those people that aren’t even library regulars feel like they have the right to go claim their spot at 8am by putting their random shit all over the table and then leave for class for 4 hours. That is just NOT kool AT ALL!!! You know that arcade game where you bop the alligators or hippos on the head as they peep out of the whole? Well, I want one of those boppers so I can run around the library just beating these people over the head. Maybe I may even get tickets for a prize after or something.

SXM Airport emergency exercise

21 Jun

arwa |  June 21st,2011 | Uncategorized |  No Comments »

So I got to be a part of something really kool and fun in SXM last weekend. The airport here, Princess Juliana Airport, is a really dangerous airport because of its landing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZJm3ezzWOQ). They did an emergency exercise where we simulated a plane crash. The story was:

Our aircraft was an ATR-72, Jinx Airlines Flight #142. We were returning from Venezuela when suddenly, upon landing, the plane veered towards the left and landed on the grass near a fuel tank of a fuel farm. The aircraft was torn into 2 pieces. The convict was supposedly “a pain in the ass” and gave everyone hell.

So we first went to the red cross on the island where they dressed us all up as plane crash victims. They did an impressive job! It looked so real… they had torn up/burnt clothes for us to put on, they had red dye, plasticine to make really weird gashes, things that looked like glass (someone had glass sticking out of their chest) and hair gel to make it all 3D. It was awesome! Though one of my sports bras got a little “bloody” in the process unfortunately. We also got fed some breakfast, wasn’t much but it was something. We then all went to the airport and took our places. Most of us weren’t given specific tasks or story lines to follow so we just made it up as we went along.

The special effects were really kool too. They had smoke bombs that went off inside the “plane”, which was really a tiny bus but there was smoke and some buckets were set on fire, and they had scattered childrens’ toys on the lawn. It was well done.

Then all the fun started with the police and ambulance and firefighters arriving. The tags go green- able to walk, yellow- needs some medical attention, red- desperately needs medical attention, and black- dead. I was red tagged and the only thing they did for me was carry me over to a different spot on a stretcher and then leave me there to bake in the sun for about 1.5 hours or so… i don’t even know how long, i lost track of time. Then the next thing I know, someone is telling me the exercise is over and that I can get up. Sadly, if this was reality, I would have died from a broken arm as I went in and out of consciousness…. that’s just sad. I suppose the SXM emergency team has some serious work to do.

Unfortunately I can’t attach pictures on here but once I figure out how to do it without it giving me an error, I will put up some pics.

This was such a fun experience… I don’t think I will ever get such an opportunity and I’m glad I decided to do it. Besides, I got to miss class for it :)

Block 2

13 Jun

arwa |  June 13th,2011 | Uncategorized |  No Comments »

Two block exams down and now I just have to wait 1.5 weeks for my prize <3

…. but for now, I desperately need sleep. Good night all!

Cat lady video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTTwcCVajAc&feature=aso): Can’t get enough of this fake video… though knowing it’s fake makes it less amusing… but still amusing enough to want to watch :)

bed times are for sissys

03 Jun

sohail |  June 3rd,2011 | blog, rambles |  No Comments »

Sometimes it’s the lack of sleep that really drives us to write. I did doze off for a little bit, but I quickly rose from that slumber… I’m not writing out of an obligation, but I am writing out of a sense of need. Yet I have nothing to express, perhaps just my presence is all I wish to subject…

The life of Sohail seems to consist of work and school with the odd assortment of social activities. If I have the time and energy tomorrow or Sunday I will take the time to actually update with what’s going on.

Just know this. Soon, very very soon, the semester is over and I will be having fun… FUN FUN FUN!

With the wife! Perhaps now I can sleep.

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